


Home for the Holidays

by shieldivarius



Series: Femslash Yuletide 2014 [19]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Barton Family, F/F, Femslash Yuletide, Prompt: Home for the Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 05:39:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5485628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/shieldivarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint has an invitation for Natasha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home for the Holidays

**Author's Note:**

> Too much work means I've run out of story backlog and I'm going to be behind in posting for the rest of the month but I'm definitely going to finish and wrap everything up! Thanks everyone for all the kudos and for being patient with me <3
> 
> (All of the Melinda/Natasha stories in this year's Femslash Yuletide are in the same universe and chronological unless stated otherwise!)

Natasha poured over transcripts of the Advent Gang members’ intake interviews, scribbling notes in the margins of her copies and plotting details in a web on the open tablet interface of her desk. 

Three down, four to go, but she didn’t feel like they were getting any closer to tracking down and catching those last four. Far from it, in fact.

She should be able to think circles around these goons. To find herself stymied by idiots who flaunted their connections on social media was _embarrassing._

Maybe she’d become distracted—a change of scenery might do her good. A day off.

But there were precious few days until her self-imposed Christmas deadline came down. She didn’t have time for a day off if she expected to have a hope in hell of making it.

Natasha groaned and put her head in her hands, letting her pen fall with a clatter to the desk. 

Footsteps approached in the hallway and someone nudged the ajar door open.

"Hey."

Clint.

She looked up and gave him a tight smile. A moment’s distraction couldn’t do much harm to her progress. It wasn’t as though she’d made much. 

He held a stiff, lilac coloured envelope in his hands, and offered it out toward her when she noticed it. Taking it, Natasha flipped it around in her hands. 'Nat' was written simply, in neat little printing, on the front of the envelope.

"What's this?" she asked.

"It's from Laura."

She frowned at him, watching his face as she slit the envelope open with her thumb. Clint crossed his arms and leaned back against the doorjamb.

Laura had never had Clint hand deliver a Christmas card to her before. She'd mailed them to Natasha's base address—every year, actually, and Nat still had them all squirrelled away in the back of a drawer in her kitchen—but this was different.

Natasha skimmed the card, lowered it, and looked at Clint with her eyebrows raised. Not a Christmas card. An invitation.

"She wants me to come over for Christmas? You don't want me there for Christmas." She gave a snort of laughter and put the invitation down, turning back to the Advent Gang documents she'd been going through.

How ridiculous. Clint knew she wouldn't have any idea of how to handle herself at a family Christmas gathering. It was bad enough that Melinda seemed to have some sort of mounting expectation of her. She didn't need this, too. 

"You have something better planned?"

Natasha shifted her shoulders and shrugged. Did she? Christmas morning with Barton's kids sounded... well, noisy. But nice, if she could figure out, at the last minute, what to buy for them.

That was pressure she didn't think she needed right now. Not in addition to everything else. Why had society decided, apparently as a cumulative whole, that this time of year needed to be so  _difficult?_

"How'd you manage to get leave to go home for Christmas?" Natasha asked.

"I asked," he said. "Don't dodge my questions with questions of your own."

"I'm going to be working," she said, and waved a hand to indicate the piles of paper across her desk.

"That's the worst excuse you could've come up with." He crossed the room and shifted a bunch of pages into a messy pile before dumping them on another part of the desk and sitting in the space he'd cleared.

She sighed. "There was organization to that."

He smirked. "So, why are you disappointing Cooper and Lila?"

She scowled at him. _Low blow, Barton._

"Your fault if you promised I'd be there before you asked me," she said.

Clint raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged again. Then a look of glee came over his face and he snickered.

"Oh, I get it," he said. "You have a _date_."

She lifted a sheaf of pages and waved them at him. "With work." She'd said it to Melinda and maintained it now: there was no way this case was going to be wrapped up by Christmas, and that kind of sucked.

 The alarm clock on Natasha's phone sounded, and she glanced at the time with a frown. "I have to go out to patrol," she said. If she was lucky, the Advent Gang would strike today while she was out there, and she'd be able to rope another couple of them. If she could catch the ringleader, she thought the whole gang would fall apart and they'd all be able to make and keep Christmas plans. 

"No, no I get it," Clint said, sounding gleeful. "You should spend time with your _girlfriend_ over the holiday."

"Partner," Natasha said.

"I'm your _partner._ " He repeated the word with a bad Russian accent.

“I don’t sound like that.” She poked him in the leg, driving the tip of her finger into his thigh. “And you know what I mean."

" _Yowch!_ " He brushed her hand away. "Fine. If you have plans with May, you have leave to not come to the farm for Christmas."

How gracious of him.

"Thank you for your permission. Now go away."

He did, waggling his eyebrows with a crude, suggestive look in his eyes. She watched him go, still frowning. She should get Lila and Cooper something. And Laura. She could mail them, or drop them off on Christmas Eve, or something.

But she wasn't going to spend Christmas with Barton and his family. She wasn't ready for that. 

She didn't think she'd ever be ready for that.

**Author's Note:**

> http://shieldivarius.tumblr.com


End file.
